(Image Credit: Penguin.com)
Greg Heffley, a teenaged boy is sandwiched at home between his three-year-old brother Manny, who has an uncanny knack for prying open Greg’s mischief before his parents, and Rodrick, a bully of an older brother who drives the entire household nuts with his heavy metal drills and drums. Part of a band called The Loded Diper, Rodrick when either not hammering away at his drums or tormenting Greg, finds himself prone on a bed. His schoolwork is so pathetic – as is his typing – that his exasperated father redoes all of Rodrick’s schoolwork, and in the process, inadvertently ensuring that Rodrick’s Grades are appreciably good.
Rodrick now also wickedly harbours two of Greg’s most embarrassing secrets. One, is the presence of Greg’s diary. And the second, and most probably the more damaging of the two secrets, is Greg’s involuntary and embarrassing episode in a lady’s toilet. These two weapons possessed by Rodrick further imperil a relationship that has no love lost.
Jeff Kinney’s laugh-a-minute riot fest is an unhinged work of hilarious proportions. The adventures – and misadventures – of Greg Heffley leaves the reader in absolute stitches. Whether it be pretending that one of his classmates Chirag Gupta is invisible (as a punishment for coming back to the same school after declaring that he would be moving places) or getting a hideous gift of toothpicks stuck into an amoeboid shaped tin foil given to him as gift of atonement by Manny for having stuffed a chocolate-chipped cooking in the disc drive of his video game system, “Rodrick Rules” is an exercise in guffawing. By the way, Greg’s friend Rowley astonishingly manages to perch his backside firmly atop the tinfoil before the damned shapeless object is consigned to the trash can.
Supplemented by crazy illustrations, “Rodrick Rules” is above and beyond the genre of children’s books. My 11-year-old niece who was by my side when I was laughing out loud like a hyena that had outwitted a lion and scampered away with the kill, even though not amused by my gimmicks, confessed that the book was indeed hilarious. Now I will ensure that I get the entire series from her and give it a joint reading. I know she won’t be one bit amused by this troublesome proposal, but I do not think she has a choice either. So, Annika, please be prepared for an extended bout of Jeff Kinney mayhem!
“Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules” – Memorable exploits of Greg, The King!
